Chapter 287: The Invitation

Ren found Tarin at the northern landing with the guides.

"The Nightfire are bringing their measurements to the craftsperson," he said. "If they need help moving the stone, arrange a run with Ward. Keep the trips to Tide going, and have someone check the sheltered water farther along this shore. The families staying here still need somewhere warmer for their fires."

"We can look on the next run."

"Check the depth as well as the warmth. Show me what you find when I’m back."

"And if the Glassfire send for you?"

"Bring word to the tree. I’ll check when I return. I should only be on campus for a few hours."

Tarin turned to the guides. Ren watched it divide the next trips between them, then headed up past the flower field and stepped out of his world.

— • —

Halvern was in his garden, seated at the low table with a notice and a thin catalog beside his cup. He waited for Ren to sit before sliding the notice across.

"The annual Young Lords’ Muster. You qualify: Stage Five or above, with a world formed within the last ten years."

Ren read the heading, then the conditions beneath it. Lords registered their worlds and fielded teams of Subjects. The Lords themselves stayed outside the arena.

"Registration closes in a week," Halvern said. "The Muster opens a week after that."

"Where is it held?"

"The fighting takes place in a sanctioned realm opened for the event. The Lords and audience attend the main venue." He indicated a paragraph near the bottom of the notice. "That provision matters for you. Your fragment-born people still can’t be brought out onto campus."

"How do they reach the arena?"

"Directly from your world. An authorized official installs a temporary gate at an agreed location inside it. The gate connects to the event realm and handles staging, extraction and return. It closes when the arrangement ends."

Ren looked up from the notice.

"An official enters my world to install it?"

"With your permission, and for that purpose. You choose the site and accompany them."

The northern landing was already busy with families and building work. Ren pictured the loads of bundles stacked beside the steps and the Lawfires waiting beneath them. He would need another stretch of shore, accessible by water and clear of the households.

"What would they need to inspect?"

"The site and the approach your entrants will use. Ask for the installation requirements before choosing. There may be equipment to bring through."

"And afterward?"

"Any further access has to be arranged with you. Installation isn’t permission to wander through your world."

Ren ran a finger along the paragraph describing the route. There was no reason to involve the dark arch on his beach; this entrance would be built separately, for entrants whose passage through the main plane was restricted. He would keep the installation away from the families still finding places for their fires.

Ren nodded. "I’ll find a place."

"Bring it to me before you register." Halvern pushed the catalog toward him. "You should read this too."

The prize list ran across several pages. Ren passed entries for relics, materials and access to training grounds, checking the brief descriptions beneath each name. Halfway down a page, he stopped.

Fire-aspected core nurture medium — one measure. Supports the development of immature spiritual cores.

He held the page open with his left hand.

’Does that match what she needs?’

[COMPATIBLE NURTURING MATERIAL: MATCH.]

Ren looked at the quantity. One measure was listed, with no further explanation of how it was used. Compatibility gave him a reason to pursue it; he would still need to learn whether that amount could complete her development.

He finished the page and closed the catalog.

"Interested?" Halvern asked.

"I’ll enter."

"Then take both. You’ll need the assessment schedule as well before settling your team."

Ren folded the notice around the catalog and put them inside his jacket.

— • —

Selene met him in the corridor outside the garden.

"Was that about the Muster?" she asked.

"Halvern had the notice."

"I’ve seen it. I qualify, but I don’t have a team ready for an arena. I’ll watch this year."

"Have you arranged a seat?"

"Not yet. I wanted to check whether there was anything else I needed to submit." She glanced toward the garden. "Are you entering?"

"Yes."

"Then I’ll see what your people can do."

She continued toward Halvern, and Ren took the corridor leading to the Terrace.

— • —

Lyra saw him from their usual table and stood. Iris set her slate face-down, while Yuelan called his name loudly enough to turn someone at the next table. Cassian was beside her with his treatment slate near his cup.

Kaelen’s chair remained empty.

Ren took another seat and laid the notice and catalog on the table.

"You said you’d find us after Six," Lyra said.

"I should have come sooner. There was still work on the other side." He rested his hands beside the papers. "The World Fire is dead. The sea is inside now."

"The whole thing?" Yuelan asked.

"The water, the islands, the settlements and everyone still there. It came through together, as the last world did."

Lyra stayed beside her chair. "Tide?"

"On its own platforms, with its Hearthfire burning. Some families crossed early and stayed on the northern shore. Others have gone back now that the guides can take them by water."

"And the people who didn’t want to come?"

"They arrived with their ground. I told them that before the merge. Some still aren’t pleased."

"Could you have left them outside?"

"Not while bringing the whole fragment in. And I wasn’t leaving my world exposed to the grey tree while I waited for everyone to agree."

Lyra drew her chair in and sat.

"They don’t have to become Subjects," Ren continued. "Tarin, the Tidefire guide, asked for that bond separately. Most of the people there are ordinary residents."

"What are they doing there?" Yuelan asked.

"Repairing what they can. The Glassfire are checking their old platforms, and the Nightfire need stone to shade their Hearth. One of the craftspeople is building a landing on my shore."

"With you?"

"It started while I was still at Tide."

"Can you explain things to them now?" Cassian asked.

"Since the merge, we understand each other in words."

"What did they say first?" Yuelan asked.

"The elder wanted to know where the families who crossed early had landed. I told it, and it sent for guides."

Yuelan leaned back. "Can I come and see them?"

"After the Muster. There’s work going on at the landing and I need to prepare a team."

She looked down at the notice. "You’re entering?"

"Yes."

Iris had kept her eyes on his right hand.

"What did the fight cost you?"

Ren lifted it and tried to close his fingers. They stopped short of his palm.

"It’s still slow. Better than it was yesterday." He lowered it to the table. "And there’s plenty left to do. An injured young Pyreborn is staying under the tree. Eira’s been looking at her."

Iris reached across and turned his hand palm-up, supporting it beneath the wrist.

"Try again."

He closed his fingers as far as they would go. She watched until the movement stopped, then released him and drew the notice closer.

"Let’s see what you’ve entered."

— • —

Cassian asked to read, so Iris passed him the notice and opened the rules on her slate. He set the paper beside it, leaving his treatment slate within reach.

"Lords remain outside the arena during every round," he read. "No attacks, energy supply, new equipment or reinforcements may be sent in. Declared equipment enters with the team."

Ren leaned closer as Cassian moved to the next paragraph.

"A Subject may use its own communication network within the arena. The Lord cannot act as an outside supply channel."

"Keep’s network, then," Ren said. "Between whoever goes in. Nothing supplied through me."

"Keep?" Cassian asked.

"The spore cradle on Ward’s back."

Cassian nodded and followed the next line with a finger.

"Entrants must be registered Subjects or approved companions of registered Subjects. The relationship has to be established and declared at assessment. You can’t assign an ordinary resident as a companion just to enter them."

"That rules out borrowing a team from Tide," Iris said.

"I have Subjects to choose from."

"And Bloodline Plant Lords can’t enter as Subjects," Cassian continued.

"So Lyra and I couldn’t join you," Iris said. "Neither could Selene."

"She’s observing this year."

Cassian paused over the next paragraph, then shifted the notice closer to the light.

"Each squad has an assessment weight and must stay within the published limit. Bond effects and constituent bodies are included." He looked at Ren. "Does Ward count as one entrant?"

"Ward is one Subject. Keep is another."

"But they travel together."

"They don’t have to be entered together."

Iris brought the same paragraph up on her slate. "And the weight means assessed capability, not how heavy the whale is."

"What about Vesper’s cat?" Cassian asked.

"Mistwhisker would have to be declared with Vesper. The assessment needs to account for both of them."

Cassian went back over the wording. "Does that use one place or two?"

"The schedule should tell us," Ren said. "Halvern told me to get it before choosing."

Cassian set the paper flat and eased his hand away from it. While Iris checked the slate, he drank from his cup, then brought the notice closer again. Ren waited until he had found the next section before asking about the remaining conditions.

Iris checked beneath the paragraph, then scrolled farther down. "The limit is in that schedule too. This only tells us there is one."

"So we don’t know what Ward costs," Cassian said.

"Not yet."

Iris looked at Ren. "What does Ward leave you for the others?"

"That’ll depend on the assessment."

"Get the schedule first. You could plan around a team that doesn’t fit."

Ren pulled the notice toward him long enough to mark the reference, then returned it to Cassian.

The last section covered surrender and emergency extraction. Cassian read the conditions aloud, including disqualification for attacking an entrant after an accepted surrender. Recovery between rounds followed the event’s published schedule.

Ren thought of the moss still covering Ward’s tail. Extraction could get an injured entrant out of the arena, but that didn’t mean it would be ready for the next round. He would have to account for recovery when he chose who to send.

"Where do your people enter?" Iris asked.

"Through a temporary gate inside my world. Straight into the event realm."

"Where are you putting it?"

"I need the installation requirements before I choose."

"Make room for them to come back injured," Cassian said. "Ward too, if you send it."

Ren glanced at the extraction section again. A narrow channel might be enough for departure and still be a poor place to bring a wounded whale home.

"I will."

Iris slid the catalog back across the table. Ren gathered it with the notice, leaving the marked reference to the assessment schedule facing outward.

— • —

He returned to his world before dark.

Ward rested beside the northern landing with Balm on its tail and Keep between its shoulders. The craftsperson knelt by a slab farther up the bank, stretching a knotted cord across it while the Nightfire guide held the other end.

Along the shore, a member of one of the staying households was testing the shallows. It lowered a hand into the water, walked a few paces and tried again. Ren stopped beside it to ask what it had found.

"A little warmer here," it said. "Not enough."

"The guides are checking farther along. Show them this place too."

It nodded and turned back toward its household’s fire.

Tarin was coming in from the silver water with Riptide nearby. Several Lawfires followed in a loose group, their passengers and loads becoming clearer as they approached the landing. Ren waited until the first reached the sheltered pocket, then went up toward the Worldroot with the papers beneath his arm.

The princess rested beside the roots. He crouched to check her outline and the warmth of the water before sitting against the trunk. The catalog stayed closed on his knee while he unfolded the rules.

He marked the section on outside support. His team would have to manage with what it carried into the realm and what its members could provide for each other. He needed the assessment figures before he could decide how much room there was for fighters, protection and recovery.

Down at the beach, Tarin helped receive a bundle from the arriving group. Ward shifted beside the landing to make space for another Lawfire. Ren watched them work, then looked back at the line excluding Lords from the arena.

Whoever he chose would have to fight without him.